From "The Way by Swann's"

Abstract

Translator's note: The following passage, about young narrator's love of writer Bergotte, occurs about one hundred pages into The Way by Swann's (pp.92-95 in Pleiade edition of Du cote de chez Swann). The character Bergotte, and style of writing, are said to have been modeled at least in part by Proust on a writer much admired by him, John Ruskin, nineteenth-century master stylist who wrote on art, architecture, and economic and social issues, and two of whose best known works are Modern Painters and The Stones of Venice. Proust himself, working with mother, Jeanne Proust, and a young English artist, Marie Nordlinger, translated Ruskin's The Bible of Amiens and Sesame and Lilies into French. My procedure in translating Proust was to follow original very closely, even word byword when possible, to reproduce shape of its sentences, even including their punctuation when possible, and to avoid adding to text, subtracting from it, or substituting my interpretations for original. In my second and third drafts I compared my work closely with major existing translation, C.K. Scott Moncrieff's Swann's Way. Despite many good qualities of this translation, which has been standard for decades, and despite often positive effects of revisions carried out on it by Terence Kilmartin and D.J. Enright, a close examination--which is what I gave it as I worked with it--reveals several features that point to need for a new translation. There is a natural tendency, in translation, to inflate and overwrite, for a simple reason: you want to make a rhythmically pleasing sentence in English; often an easy way to improve rhythm in English is by adding to or subtracting from original; you will usually decide to add because a worse crime would be to subtract material from original; and then if you add, you will usually choose to double or reinforce meaning of original rather than add new material of your own. Thus does your translation become redundant or repetitious--his instead of his' himself instead of he, strange and haunting instead of simply strange. Although on its own terms, Scott Moncrieff translation is successful and, because of sheer size of book, an astounding achievement, it does suffer consistently from over-interpretation and inflation. In following passage, for instance, where Proust describes narrator's remarks as uninteresting, Moncrieff translates this more emphatically as quite interest: without interest is a good exact equivalent for sans interet, but here Moncrieff intensifies it by quite?' In a more significant amplification, where Proust has the writer's page Moncrieff adds a concrete image, producing his printed page?' Adding again, Moncrieff turns confidence into newfound confidence: here he is taking what he has learned from context (that narrator was not confident before but is now confident) and adding it to unadorned word that Proust actually wrote. French readers of original will add their own understanding to word; readers of translation will be helped?' Lastly, this time substituting, Moncrieff replaces pre retrouve--father found again--by father?' Moncrieff is inferring that father was lost from what Proust says--that father was found again. This is legitimate enough if it is done silently by reader--it is what readers do. But he is going farther when, as translator, he substitutes what he inferred for what Proust actually said. The replacement of Proust's choice, lost:' by Moncrieff's, found, is a significant one. (Think of titles of books: general title, In Search of Lost Time, and title of last volume, Time Found Again.) And then he is also adding long, a less justifiable inference. Most likely father was long-lost but Proust chose not to specify. …